[Peace-discuss] note to Sonya Michel on her voting misrepresentation argument on ASA BDS in the NYT

[Robert Naiman]

Sonya Michel
Professor of history, women's studies and American studies
University of Maryland
College Park, Md.

Dear Ms. Michel,

I was very disappointed to see you argue in the NYT that Omar Barghouti
"vastly overstates" the yes vote in the American Studies Association on the
boycott of Israeli higher education institutions by not mentioning that 25%
of the organization's membership voted on the question.

Surely you are well aware that this is how elections work in general: the
yes vote is measured against the total number of people voting, not the
total eligible electorate. That's how we elect public officials in the
United States; that's how union representation elections work. People who
don't vote are not counted.

According to the logic of your argument, most mayors, city councils, and
elected school boards in the United States are illegitimate, because they
were only elected with a minority of the vote, since the majority of the
eligible electorate did not show up.

You are free, of course, to have whatever opinion you want on BDS, but I
think it's embarrassing for academia in general for a university professor
to use such an obviously specious argument in a letter published by the New
York Times.

All best,

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898, extension 1

Refs:
Sonya Michel letter to the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/opinion/the-case-for-the-israel-boycott.html
This note:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1494
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